


Slowly, and Then All at Once (Like Falling Asleep)

by Shatteredsand



Series: Slowly, and Then All at Once [1]
Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: Deckstein, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gail Peck is better than well everyone, Happy Ending, Little bit of angst, M/M, Multi, OT3, Obliviousness, Polyamory, boys are stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteredsand/pseuds/Shatteredsand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dov falls in love with Gail, Chris falls in love with Dov, and Gail is having none of their bullshit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dov

It starts like this:

Gail is incredibly vocal in bed. Like, _incredibly_. Like Dov can hear her even when he sleeps with his headphones blaring on full blast, incredibly. He thinks it might be her secret superpower, ability to turn anything and everything into an acidic barb not withstanding. Because there's no way a human being should be able to reach that kind of volume. It's just not naturally possible. It isn't.

The first time it happens, Dov gives Chris a discreet fistbump and a grin, halfway through a comment on making the ice-queen melt when Gail enters the room with all her...Gail-ness and Chris is giving him that small-town boy look that silently chastises Dov for every decision he's ever made that didn't end with Dov in church.

The second time it happens, Dov withholds his fistbump--not that Chris seems to miss it--and tries giving Chris's small town boy look to the man himself. Gail asks him what his face is doing and why, and Chris smirks a little into his coffee cup, and Dov gives up the ghost. He doesn't say anything either, because Gail has a take-home permit for her gun and Chris would probably help her hide the body because, you know, _love_.

The third time it happens, Dov leaves in the middle. He, unlike the banshee seducing his best friend, is only human, and he needs some fucking sleep.

Chris apologizes later, at the station. He's grinning like an idiot--which, okay, deserved, because he'd made Gail Peck scream for hours last night and good for him--but sincere. Dov forgives him, because of course he forgives him. Chris is his best friend and his roommate and his partner oftentimes, and there's very little Dov would begrudge him. A few nights of incredibly loud sex with one of the hottest officers in their unit _doesn't_ make the list.

They're a little quieter after that. But not much. Because Dov can still totally hear Gail, only now the sound is slightly muffled and distorted, and it's giving Dov _thoughts_. Bad thoughts about bad things. Like, is Chris pressing his hand over her mouth? Or, maybe he's trying to swallow her sounds with a kiss? Or, does Gail trust Chris enough to let him use a gag?

And this is somehow so much worse.

* * *

Or maybe it starts like this:

Gail hogs the bathroom. Like, all the time. Like Dov can't remember the last time he took a shower that wasn't cut off ten minutes in because the hot water's run out. And it's infuriating.

He does not hide his displeasure. This is his apartment, too, not their little love shack, and he has a basic human right to take a nice, hot shower in the mornings.

"GAIL!" He's hammering his fist against the door, and Gail is humming. In the shower. Where she's been for the last _half hour_. He needs to pee, he needs to shave, and he needs to take a goddammed shower. "GAIL!"

"I'm in the shower, Dov!" She shouts back, vitrol and venom, like he's the bad guy in this situation. Like he's the villain robbing the household of hot water and bathroom usage. Like he doesn't _know_ she's in the shower, using up the hot water and the space and _pissing him off_.

"Yes. You _are_ in the shower. Get _out_ of the shower."

"I haven't _finished_!"

Chris is laughing at them--laughing, the fucker--in the living room. He's laughing because he got to shower _with_ Gail, and therefore does not have to deal with being pelted with icicles halfway through washing his hair. Jackass.

"Dude." Dov thinks that Chris, as his best friend, should be able to intuitively understand that the rest of that sentence contains way too many expeltives to ever be spoken aloud.

"I'll talk to her." Chris says, but he's still trying to hide his damn smile, and Dov isn't fooled for a second.

Silently, and with extreme reluctance, Dov wishes his hot morning showers a fond goodbye.

* * *

Or it might have started like this:

Gail is better than him at video games.

Gail is _better_ than _him_ at _video games_.

She blows his character away, again, and lets out this little laugh of victory that Dov hates with a passion greater than any he's ever known and also...doesn't. It's weird. He doesn't like it.

He tries switching the games out, like maybe she's just genetically predisposed towards first person shooters, on account of her family being blue bloods for generations and breeding for perfection. She beats his Mario Kart record--which he has held uncontested for _three years_ \--in their first race. After _lapping_ him.

She does this victory dance/shake/shimmer thing, and for a moment, Dov forgets to be mad. Mostly because he finds himself staring at her and having really bad, naughty, wrong thoughts. Then he remembers himself and shuts that line of thought down. Hard.

He's going to hell.

Gail is his best friend's girl, and Dov doesn't even like her most of the time, and, nope, Dov is so not going there. No matter how beautiful she looks flushed with victory or how clearly he can add serious sound effects to that little dance that make it so much worse than it is.

She kicks his ass at Halo, Black Ops, Need for Speed, Bioshock, and fucking DeathDomain long into the night and deep into the early morning, long after they should have gone to bed because they have a shift tomorrow morning. She does her little dance after every win, and Dov stops trying not to watch somewhere around midnight, after Chris goes to bed with a smile--like this is the best day ever because his best friend and his girlfriend are finally getting along.

They have to prop themselves up with Redbull, Monster, and coffee at parade, but Chris looks so damn happy, and Gail's perpetual gloating is almost kind of fond, and Dov can't bring himself to regret it. Except for those moments when he had watched her in the only way he never, ever should.

He tells her she's awesome. Because it had been a bet, and he had to. Because she needed to hear it. Because he honestly thinks it's _true_.

* * *

It probably started like this:

Dov forgot to charge his iPod. This shouldn't be as big a deal as it is, but Gail and Chris are going at it again, and, jesus, he's hearing every high, needy moan and every roughly growled curse and...

He's hard.

He doesn't want to be. This is so far out of the realm of okay, listening to his buddy bang his girl, and kind of getting off on it.

But all he can hear is Gail. Fucking Gail getting fucked and fucking liking it. And all he can see is Gail. Smug Gail with her little dances and her little towel and her little life mixing with all together with his.

It wasn't fair. He hadn't asked for this, okay? He doesn't even really like Gail all that much, except for when he kind of really does. It's confusing, and it's stupid, because Gail certainly doesn't even like him back. Except her sighs are kind of fond these days and her eye rolls are maybe affectionate and her barks have less bite, and Dov likes that she likes him. Dov likes that she likes him, and he likes that she likes Chris, and it isn't fair.

Because she likes Chris better, and Dov--he's going to the lowest circle of hell for the this, the one reserved for _traitors_ \--Dov wants to be the one she likes the most.

He's not sure when it happened--sometime during his pathetic, inner monologue, he's sure--but he's started palming himself through his boxers.

He is a terrible friend.

He is a terrible _person_.

His hand slips beneath the waistband and Dov tells himself that, no, he is not going to do this. He is going to stop, right this very instant, and not jerk off to the sound of his best friend fucking the girl they both love.

Only, his hand doesn't listen, and he finds himself falling into the same rhythm as the bed banging into the wall, as Gail's moans and swears and breathy "Chris"s, as Chris's grunts and groans and little whimpers.

He comes, unbelievably hard and pitifully quick, with Gail's name on his lips. A near silent cry, an almost unspoken lament.

* * *

It _actually_ started like...

You know what? Fuck it. Dov doesn't know how or when it started. He doesn't know when he went from thinking that Gail Peck was possibly the worst person on the planet to thinking she was kind of the most awesome being in the universe. He doesn't know how he managed to fall in love with his best friend's girl.

Because it had started before Gail was Chris's girl. Back when they were all a bunch of stupid rookies and Gail Peck--mean, bitingly sarcastic, white-shirt-in-the-making Gail Peck; Beautiful, viciously funny, surprisingly sensitive Gail Peck--had laughed at his jokes. And it had kept growing from there when he wasn't looking, wasn't paying attention.

When he had let his mouth shoot off when he didn't have a damn clue what he was talking about, and for just a moment he got to see the cascading waves of so, so much emotion walled up behind those icy blue-gray eyes. When she'd hugged him so tightly after the thing with Luke's shooter. When she, drunk as hell and twice as adorable as usual, offered him a drink of her margarita straight from the blender she was drinking out of, and he accepted. When she'd held on to him for over a minute after the meth lab bomb, and she'd been shaking just as much as he had. When she moved in to help take care of Chris, and started being loud at night and taking too long showers and kicking his ass at DeathDomain.

Dov doesn't know how it started, when or how he fell in love with Gail Peck. Couldn't pinpoint the exact moment something flipped the switch in his head that turned off his brain and turned on his heart.

He just knows that he did. He just knows that he loves her.

* * *

This is how it ends:

Dov is doing his damnedest at mounted training because Gail shows up, sometimes, to watch Chris, and Dov would be okay with getting a little acknowledgement from her about how he doesn't always suck at everything.

It might also have something to do with that 27th guy, Aaron, that Chris is suddeny back to being the best of buddies with. Not that Dov is jealous. It's just that Chris is his best friend and his roomate, and, and...well, Chris is just _his_ , okay? He doesn't care if it makes him sound like a petulant five year old clutching his favorite toy on the playground. He already has to share Chris with Gail, and Gail with Chris, and Dov doesn't want to have to share with anyone else.

So, Dov is riding his horse like a pro. Right up until he lands a little awkwardly on his final jump, and his everything starts to hurt. Like, seriously, take me to the hospital right the fuck now, hurt.

And then there are the pills. He takes him the way he's supposed to, to the letter of the prescription, because Adam was an addict and Dov doesn't ever wants to be like him. But it doesn't matter because he starts feeling good. Loose and light, and all these words start falling out of his mouth that he thinks maybe he shouldn't say but he can't muster the give-a-damn to stop.

"...pretty much the most incredible girl that I've ever dated. The only thing wrong with her..."

"She's dating an idiot who's higher than a lab monkey?"

"No. The only thing that's wrong with her is that she's not you."

"What?"

"I mean, if she was you, or I was Chris , I'd believe in a love of the soul..."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"And I'd marry you. I would. Mhmm. And we'd open our presents on Christmas morning, not Christmas Eve, and I'd take a desk job. I'd hit fifty, I'd lose my hair, my mind. Listen to jazz and embarrass our kids. _Our kids_. With their straw colored hair and your eyes. And I'd wake up, every morning, and wonder at my dumb, dumb, dumb luck." He's kissing her hand, and she's looking at him with some mix of emotions he is't in the right mindset to understand, that maybe he couldn't puzzle out even if he wasn't high as a kite. "If I was Chris."

He tries to take it back when sobers up, not because he didn't mean it--he did, he meant it so much it fucking hurts--but because he knows she loves Chris and Chris loves her, and it was always going to be Gail and Chris, and he can see how good they are for each other. He doesn't want to get in the way of that.

" _Don't_." It isn't harsh or cruel, just kind of quiet and sad, and Dov thinks it's too late to take it back. The damage's been done and he can't undo it.

And, what the hell, he's still high enough to think that if it's already broken...

He kisses her. She kisses him back--for a fraction of a moment--and then her hands on his shoulders, pushing him away, and she's shaking her head and saying "No. No, no, no, no." She gets out of the car, and she doesn't wait to see if he's following her, and Dov lets her go. Even in his drug-addled brain, he's starting to realize what he's done. Just how bad he's fucked up.

Turns out, just because it's already broken doesn't mean there isn't still something there to break.

And then Gail tells Chris, and then Dov tells Chris, and it's all a huge mess he can't seem to fix no matter what he does. He's just making it worse, but he doesn't know how to stop it, how to make it better instead.

"Did you kiss her?"

"No!" Only, he had, hadn't he? "Yes."

That was probably the wrong answer, but it had been the _truth_. Chris is grabbing him, throwing him into the squad car, and this isn't the time or the place, but this is when it's happening.

"Shut up! _Shut up_. Don't try and talk this thing down like everything's okay! I thought the two of you were just staring to get along, with the frozen drinks and video games, but it makes sense now. You were waiting for your opportunity."

"No. No, Chris, I wouldn't do that to--" He wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't. Whatever his weird feelings for Gail, whatever idle thoughts he let traipse through his head sometimes, he wouldn't ever do anything that would cost him Chris. Chris is his _best friend_. And that doesn't always mean something to some people, but it means a whole lot to Dov, and he would never have ever said a word to Gail about his feelings if he'd been sober enough to stop himself. Because he would never let himself do that to Chris.

"Would you shut up! Shut up, Dov. Just shut _the hell_ up."

Then the SUV and the suspect and the little kid and "We are not okay just because you almost died. Again."

And worse, crushingly worse, Gail coming home. This is her _home_ , she _lives_ here, and he's _ruined_ it. She looks shattered, and his girlfriend opens her mouth--and he'd thought she was perfect except for all the parts of her that weren't Gail, but he was so, so wrong because how can she not see that this is not okay? Everything is _not okay_ \--and asks where Chris is.

"Um, he's out. We had a talk, and, uh, and then he left." She looks right at him when she says it. To really drive the point across that this is all his fault. He did this to her, to Chris, to all of them.

"I get the feeling that she doesn't really like me."

"It's not you; it's _me_."

He breaks up with Sue later that night. It isn't fair to her, to be wanting Gail so much while she starts falling in love with him. And it isn't right of him to distract himself with his own perfectly functional relationship after shredding the relationship between the two people who matter most to him.

They're miserable because of what he did; it's his fault, and he deserves to be miserable too.


	2. Chris

Gail disappears from the apartment, seemingly overnight. Her toothbrush isn't next to his, her shampoo and conditioner and body wash and loufa leave the shower feeling empty and incomplete, and his bed still smells like her perfume but she isn't in it anymore.

Chris doesn't know where he was when it happened, when Gail Peck grabbed all her stuff and booked it the hell out of there, but she's gone now. And Chris isn't sure she's coming back. He almost convinces himself that he doesn't want her to. She let Dov get close to her, she let Dov kiss her, she _betrayed_ him.

But then he rolls over, his arm automatically reaching out to wrap around her and pull her closer, the smell of her clinging to his sheets where she used to be but isn't anymore, and he wants her back. He wants her back so badly he can barely breathe.

* * *

Dov makes him breakfast. Every day. Dov isn't exactly Master Chef, so it's mostly scrambled eggs and toast, but he makes him breakfast. It's a silent apology, and Chris thinks he gives a tacit acceptance every time he stuffs the food into his mouth. But he can't bring himself to hear the words yet, the "I'm so sorry" waiting on the tip of Dov's tongue, the "I forgive you" hovering at the back of his own throat.

He doesn't forgive Dov. Not yet. He can't. He's had two girlfriends in his whole life, and Gail is the only one he's ever lived with. He didn't feel the same way about Denise, when he'd been dating her, as he does about Gail. He moved away from Denise, and he hadn't missed her the way he misses Gail right now, like everything is all wrong because she isn't there. His whole life feels...less. A shadow of what it could be, what it _should_ be, because Gail Peck isn't sleeping in his bed anymore or stealing food off his plate or playing noisy video games with Dov in the living room or...anything. Because Gail Peck isn't here, and he thinks he might need her to be.

So, he's not ready to tell Dov that everything is okay, that they're okay.

Because Chris...he really isn't.

* * *

At some point, they put it together. Well, Dov puts it together and then tells Chris about it, faltering with his words like he's not sure he's allowed to talk about this.

"Do you know...do you know where, um, where Gail's staying at?"

Something inside Chris tightens up painfully, because the answer should be _here_ but it isn't. Because he doesn't know. Because he doesn't want to think about Dov swooping in and stealing her away, even though Gail isn't the type of girl to give much of damn about swooping and would kick the ass of anyone stupid enough to imply that she could be stolen in any way.

He shakes his head, mute. He doesn't know how to talk about this, isn't sure he wants to. If this is a prelude to Dov asking for his blessing--if Dov thinks Chris is in a good enough place to grant it--he doesn't want to know about it because he so very much isn't.

"I think...I mean...she isn't here, right? And she doesn't really have a bunch of friends at 15. And she wouldn't let her family, I mean, you know how she is about her family...she wouldn't let them see her, I don't know, defeated." A flinch at the last word, and Chris feels one rip through him at the same time. Is that what they did? With their stupid, reckless emotions? Did they _defeat_ Gail Peck? "So, um, I think she might be living in her car right now, and that's, that's, that's...it's just not okay, okay?"

No. No, that is not okay. His chest tightens up again, and he thinks his hands might have clenched into fists, and there's a chance he might actually hurl all over the living room floor. How could he not have thought about that? While he was lying in his suddenly too big bed during nights that were too long and too quiet? Why wasn't he wondering where she was, if she wasn't with him? Why hadn't he been _paying attention_?

"She has to come back." Chris has never been more certain of anything in his entire life. Gail cannot live in her car. It's unacceptable. He may be mad at her right now, but he's mad at Dov too, and he didn't kick him out. The treasonous part of his brain whispers that he didn't kick her out either, she just left. That Dov is _Dov_ , and that's something completely different and kind of the same.

But he tells it to shut right the hell up, because _no_. Just no.

He didn't kick her out, but he hadn't made her stay, either. Hadn't even tried. And Chris is not okay with that.

Chris isn't okay with any of this.

* * *

Gail, of course, has always had the most unfortunate habit of entering the room at exactly the wrong moment to draw all the worst conclusions. And now, Chris is pretty positive, she thinks he and Dov were making fun of her. They weren't; they weren't making fun of anyone, and if they were it was the training officers. Not her. They wouldn't do that--couldn't do that, the wound with her name stretching between them open and raw and still bleeding--to her.

Dov gives him a look, then a pointed glance at the "gym bag" Gail is lugging out of the room, and, yeah, he gets it.

"Gail. Gail, wait."

"What?" She's pissed, and Chris is angry for a moment because _she_ kissed _his_ best friend, not the other way around...but.

"Move back in." He'd meant to make it a question, but it comes off as a statement, a demand. "Please, move back in?"

"Thought you didn't have faith in us?"

Chris winces, and he should have known that was going to come back and bite him the ass. He'd just been so angry. Because it had been Dov. Dov, his best friend. Dov, his roomate. Dov, his...well, _his_. He would have forgiven her for anyone else, but it had been _Dov_ , and that made it worse somehow. His girl and his best friend, right under his nose while he kept not noticing all the little things that should have told him what he was trying not to see.

"I didn't mean that." He hadn't. He's not sure he's ready to forgive her, the same way he's not sure he's ready to forgive Dov, but he wants this work again. He wants to _try_. "I didn't. I'm sorry I said it. I was just angry. I'm sorry."

Dov is shifting his feet awkwardly, staring at the ground, and Chris can't help but watch him from the corner of his eye. Can't help but notice Gail watching him too.

"I don't want to be in one of those relationships, Chris." And some part of him forgets how to breathe, like she's figured out something he's only starting to realize was there to figure out and telling him no before he even knows what the question is. "I don't want to be the couple who break up every other week and then get back together while the rest of the division places bets on how long it'll last this time."

"We're not like that. We're _not_. We had a fight, a pretty big one, and we both got mad for different reasons, and then you left..." Chris swallows a little thickly. He's never been ashamed of his emotions, of telling his important people that they are important, but this feels so much bigger than that and he doesn't know why. "But I didn't want you to."

"You sure as hell didn't stop me." The words should be venomous-- _are_ venomous, battery acid flung through the air--but Gail is looking at him softly, vulernable in front of him again and probably hating it, and this is why he loves her. These moments right here where she isn't pretending to be a bitch just because it's easier for her than admitting that she's an actual human being with actual human feelings. That she can be hurt.

That _he_ hurt her.

"I kind of wasn't there." Chris points out, tiniest of smiles on his lips. Because this is good. He likes where this is going. "Pretty sure that was on purpose, too."

Gail shrugs, like it doesn't matter, but he sees the smile on her face. Smaller than even his, but definitely there. He knows Gail, and she knows he does, too, because he wouldn't if she hadn't let him. But she had, and he does, and this is how they worked. This is how they could work again. "What about you, Epstein? Gonna do the awkward, head-down, foot-shuffle for the rest of your dorky life?"

"Gail, you're not fooling anyone; we're fucking _friends_."

"Maybe. Maybe you're just my boyfriend's lame roommate, who I happen to frequently destroy at DeathDomain while drinking maragaritas."

"When two people drink maragritas out of the same blender, it bonds them for life. No matter hw many humilating defeats I will eventually force you to suffer through."

"Says the kid without a single high score to his name."

Chris realizes, abruptly, that he is grinning like a madman. He doesn't think he should be. He's pretty sure that bantering was one of the contributing factors in Dov's falling in love, and he already knows how that story ends. All three of them miserable and alone and hurting. But he can't help it. This feels...right, somehow. This is the way they're supposed to be. They just need to work out the details of how to make sure they don't fall apart again, that's all.

* * *

Chris and Dov move Gail back into the apartment the moment their shift is over. It's surprisingly painless; Gail and Dov bickering exactly the way they used to, Gail's hand cradled in Chris's exactly the way it should be, Chris and Dov exchanging smirking grins at Gail's exasperating behavior. He thinks it should be harder than this, that there's supposed to be more drama, more fighting, more...something.

Maybe that comes later. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe the worst has passed and everything can be okay again.

Chris really wants everything to be okay.

* * *

Chris wakes up to a face-full of painfully blonde hair and the scent of lavender and strawberries tickling his nose. His arm is drapped over Gail's waist, their fingers interlocked, their legs tangled together. And just like that, like magic, he isn't angry at her anymore. He isn't angry at Dov, either. He isn't angry with anyone ever because this is _perfect_. And this perfection has no room for his rage.

"Good morning." Chris whispers against her skin, lips brushing her shoulder.

"Mmm...I'm not gettin' up..."

Chris breathes a laugh out and continues kissing her shoulder and the back of her neck. "What about work?"

"I'm sick." Gail coughs weakly as proof.

"Mhmm," Chris starts tracing little patterns on her hip. "I don't believe you."

"Don't care."

"If you let Dov beat you to the shower, he will never ever let you live it down."

Gail is up and out of the bed in a heartbeat. Chris grins, wide and easy, and watches her nearly run out of their bedroom in nothing but her underwear and one of his shirts. Normally, he'd get up and go on a run, but he's slept in too late for that already and he feels a peaceful sort of lethargy.

"Oh, god _dammit_!" Dov's voice, followed by Gail's mocking laughter and the slamming of a door. The sound of Dov's banging echoes throughout the house. "Come on! I need to _pee_! At least leave me some hot water? Please? For the love of everything holy and damned, leave me hot water!"

And, yeah, this absolutely perfect.

* * *

It's late--so late that technically it's early--when Chris and Dov come home. They're trying to be quiet because Gail had pulled the day off and was probably already sleeping and no one with a shred of sanity wants to deal with an abruptly and unnecessarily awoken Gail Peck.

Gail is not sleeping. Gail is in the living room watching...is that, no. Is that _The Lion King_?

"Is that _The Lion King_?" Dov gives life to Chris's thoughts, and, yes, it is _The Lion King_. Gail is watching _The Lion King_.

"If you two morons don't shut up and stop ruining 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight', I will take out my gun and shoot you. If you ever, ever speak of this again, I will shoot you. Am I clear?"

"Ten-four, Officer." Dov snaps off a salute, and Chris can only nod solemnly. The chances of Gail actually shooting them are nonexistent, but she's vindictive enough to do something crushing in retribution. Like tell the whole division about the time he had gotten so seriously drunk that he'd clung to the grass outside the house and cried because he thought he was going to fall off. So much more embarrassing than watching a Disney movie. So, so much more.

"So, sit the fuck down and _shut up_."

Chris obeys, because he's her boyfriend, and it's prety much hardwired into his brain to listen when she tells him to do things. And Dov does too, because she's Gail Peck and, sometimes, it just isn't worth it to piss her off, Chris thinks.

Chris settles down next to her, and Dov plops down next to him. Gail snuggles into his side, and his arm drops around her shoulders as he presses a kiss to her crown. Dov is pressed against his side, and Gail is under his arm, and Simba is falling in love with Nala, and this is good. This is really good.

* * *

In the wake of the hellish separation that had rocked their little world, Chris and Dov decide to put aside some guy time. Every other Saturday is offically Boys' Night Out, and they make it a point not to go to The Penny where they might run into Gail--thus ruining the point of guy's night--or some of their other coworkers. Not that they don't like their brothers and sisters in blue, just...This kind of needs to be about them. So they can get over the heinous awkwardness of Dov falling in love with Chris's girlfriend and the miserable drama that had followed.

This particular Saturday, they're bowling. Because drunken bowling is hilarious, and they need more laughter in their lives. The score is terrible, because it's hard to roll anything but gutter balls while intoxicated, but that's not the point so it doesn't matter. What matters is that Dov is laughing, and Chris is laughing, and neither one of them is thinking about how their friendship almost imploded over a girl.

"Dude. I'm switching to the pink ball. I don't even care how it looks. This shit is _heavy_." Dov whines into Chris's ear, close enough to feel his lips against the skin of it. Chris isn't really sure why it makes him shiver, but he doesn't think he cares, so whatever.

Dov is stumbling around a bit by the time they've finished, lamenting fervently and loudly, about how he can't seem to win anything these days.

"Ses-eriously, Chrisss. Gail ownss me on the cooonsoole, and yooouuu make me look bad at, pff, everrrything elsse. I cannooooot catch a break."

Chris laughs, because--while he's not nearly as wasted as Dov--everything is kind of funny right now, even Dov. _Especially_ Dov. In fact, Dov is so funny that Chris feels the intense need to hug him and inform him of this fact. If he doesn't really let go, if he leaves his arm around Dov's lean shoulders, well, what of it? They're best friends, and it's sort of cold, and it doesn't mean anything weird unless they decide it does. So it doesn't. Yeah.

Dov spends the entire cab ride back home with his head against Chris's shoulder, half asleep and muttering incoherently about being a badass, and Chris can't think of a single reason why he shouldn't leave him be.

* * *

Also part of the household effort to not royally fuck this up again, is a whole bunch of togetherness time. They take turns deciding what to do--though, honestly, Gail seems to pick almost twice as often as either Chris or Dov--and then the three of them go out, or stay in, and do it.

This means: DeathDomain tournaments that carry on until the watercolor gray of the early morning. Drinking way too much caffiene, taurine--Chris doesn't even know what the hell hell taurine even _is_ \--and alcohol. Gail and Dov drinking margaritas out of the blender while Chris sips at his beer. Gail and Dov getting into semi-serious wrestling matches in a futile attempt at preventing her from completely destroying Dov's pride. Dov and Chris plotting, again futile, schemes to knock her off her game and, again, destroying Dov's pride. Gail doing her victorious dance of surpreme victory after each and every round.

This means: going to the movies and showing up at least an hour early to kill time at the arcade. Buying the biggest tub of popcorn on the menu, usually twice--once while at the arcade and then another for the actual movie--other assorted candies, and a giant ass drink with free refills to share. Gail and Dov tossing pieces of popcorn at each other across Chris's lap. Chris and Gail putting their hands over Dov's mouth together when he starts rambling about _one little thing_ mid-movie, and Dov licking both of them to make them stop--but only after Chris feels the corners of his mouth pull up into a smile.

This means: having massive movie marathons all night on their couch. Fighting about who has to get up and make more popcorn, or get more drinks for everyone, or turn on the fan when the press of three bodies makes it too hot, or turn if off when one of them gets cold again. It means Chris and Dov arguing about inaccuracies--during any and all comic book hero movies--until Gail tells them to shut up. It means snuggling together until Chris isn't sure where one person ends and another begins and a warm sort of lethagy settles in his chest. Falling asleep smooshed together and waking up all tangled up in each other.

This means: long nights at The Penny where Gail proceeds to drink both Chris and Dov under the table. Too much alcohol and a seemingly never-ending amount of hot wings. Stumbling into a cab together at three in the morning and showing up to work at eight with a splitting headache and a turning stomach and Gail looking at both her roommates saying, "If either of you care about me at all, you will bring me to where the coffee lives." Chris and Dov grinning at each other--and Chris isn't so sure that the feeling in his stomach when those moments happen have anything at all to do with his hangover--and dragging Gail by the hands to the breakroom, their fingers interlacing with hers.

This means: going to the pool. Watching Gail in her little swim suit. Watching Dov in his trunks--Chris isn't sure why he does that; he just _does_. Splash wars and dunking matches that Chris always seems to initiate because he likes the way Dov's hair gets plastered to his forehead, and he comes up sputtering for air gaping like a fish. Gail reading under an umbrella--because she burns like a lobster in the sun--and laughing at both of them. Watching Dov get to lather her up with sun screen because Chris "always seems to miss a spot and Dov never does". Paying way too much attention to Dov's hands on his girlfriend--in a way that isn't even remotely jealous, just vaguely confusing. Gently poking at Gail's spots of sunburn the day after she's let him do it, and Dov smirking smugly while Gail slaps Chris's proding hands away.

This means: hitting Denny's at midnight after their shift and ordering more pancakes, in more varieties, than they should be able to pack away. Stealing bites of blueberry pancake from Dov and buttermilk from Gail while they both pick at his banana strawberry pancakes. Smothering their entire order in so much syrup that their pancakes get soggy and _awesome_. Gail grinning like the Cheshire cat after stealing away with a forkful of Dov's pancakes. Chris pushing his own plate a little closer to Dov after each "theft". Chris running out of coffee in his own mug and taking Dov's right out of his hand because Gail takes hers black with sugar and both of them prefer a little cream in there too.

This means: getting to hang out with his girlfriend and his best in really fun ways a lot. No more awkward tension between the three of them, none that Chris can feel anyways. This means that things are good again. That they've figured it out, and this is how they work, and they are never going to let what happened a few months ago ever happen to them again.

* * *

Gail and Dov have an equalvalent to "Boy's Night Out" that's really more like "Peckstein's Night In" in which she brutally demolishes Dov at DeathDomain for hours at a time. Chris thinks it should bug him more, those Saturday nights he spends at The Penny while his girlfriend and his best friend who is in love with her are home alone together. But it really doesn't, other than the buzzing under his skin that reminds him that he'd rather be there with them than here with everyone else.

It surprises him, almost, when he realizes that he trusts them. Not to do that to him again. Even if Dov loves Gail. Without the high, he wouldn't have said anything. Wouldn't have done anything. Chris can trust Gail and trust Dov not to cross the line ever again. They all know the consequences, what it'll cost them. And Chris doesn't think any of them are eager to pay that price.

* * *

Chris thinks his date nights with Gail feel sort of...he doesn't know, _weird_ ,or something these days. Like, they're still awesome, and they still have fun, and when they fall into bed together at the end of the night everything's still amazing...

But he keeps catching himself waiting for Dov to say something, or for his best friend's hands to flail into his line of sight, or for Gail to randomly stick out her tongue at Dov just because she can and it amuses her. And he always says party of three when they go somewhere, only to have to quickly correct himself. And this is date night, wherein he goes on dates with his beautiful and smart and frankly terrifying girlfriend...so why does he keep wishing his best friend was there too?


	3. Gail

Three months after moving back in with the boys-- _her_ boys--Gail Peck has had enough of all the pussy-footing around.

Gail isn't nice, she isn't friendly, she's not fun to be around. Gail is blunt and, more often than not, kind of a serious bitch. Gail is also so damn loyal that the concept of betrayal--of doing that to someone she legitimately cares about--is unfathumable. Which is why Dov's little confession and the subsequent kiss had rocked her so badly. She'd let shock throw her off her game, and had nearly lost everything because of it.

She isn’t about to let it happen again. Chris and Dov may be okay with pretending that everything is fine, but boys are _stupid_ and therefore not allowed to make those kinds of decisions on their own.

Being Gail, she addresses the problem in the most uncomfortable way possible. She fucking says it to their faces.

"I think we should have a threesome." Most people would take Chris and Dov's shocked silence and horrified faces as a reason to stop, to laugh it off and pretend it's a bad joke, to drop the subject like it's on _fire_. Gail uses it to keep going uninterrupted. "Because I love Chris, and Chris loves me, and Dov loves me, and I love Dov, and you two aren't fooling anyone with your 'heterosexual life-partners' gig. So we should have a threesome. And by 'have a threesome' I mean _'be_ a threesome'."

"Gail..." Chris trails off, like he's not sure where he was going to go with that after he'd said it. Dov's mouth is opening and closing ineffectively like a fish out of water.

"You _love_ me? When did that happen? Where was I?"

"I laugh at your moronic jokes and let you drink from my blender." Gail says, because it's that fucking obvious, and Dov is too stupid to live but she loves him anyways. "Can we stay on point please?"

"The point of having a threesome? The three of us? _This_ three of us?" Chris is starting to catch on; Gail figured he'd be first. He's the _worst_ at hiding his little man-crush.

"Yes. You and me and Dov. Naked. Together. With touching."

"Who touching? You and me touching? Because that didn't work out too well last time." Dov feels compelled to point out.

"That was unsolicited you and me touching, without Chris's knowledge. Which is bad. This is you and me and Chris touching, with Chris's knowledge and hopefully active participation."

"I'm confused." Poor, sweet Chris. He's not as stupid as he looks, but he's pretty damn good at pretending he is; he's not fooling Gail for a second though. If he wants to pretend he's totally ignorant of his big, gay feelings until he's sure of _Dov's_ big, gay feelings, fine, whatever. It's all ending in the same place. Specifically, in bed. Naked.

"Wait, what do you mean heterosexual life-partners _gig_? We are the heterosexiest life-partners ever."

"Dov, you and Chris want to bone. It's painfully obvious."

"Are you sure, because I'm still confused."

" _You_ watch stare at Dov, like, nonstop at the pool. _You_ steal Chris's shirts from me. And you both will not stop eye-fucking each other. So, let's all _actually_ fuck, because I cannot take all the unresolved sexual tension going on in this house."

"You steal my shirts?"

"You watch me run around in my trunks?"

God, why did she have to fall for these two morons? Already tired of the conversation that's not addressing the underlying point of _having_ it, Gail decides to expedite matters. She takes off her shirt.

Cue the staring and the silence. Being a girl is awesome. "Now, you two."

Chris and Dov exchange uncertain looks. Chris bites his lip. Dov scratches the back of his neck. They take off their damn shirts. "I'm going to kiss you now. Both of you. And then you're going to kiss each other. And then we're going to a bedroom--probably mine and Chris's because the bed is bigger--and all three of us are going to kiss and touch and screw. Any questions?"

There weren't any.

* * *

Waking up the next morning, Gail feels heavy and sore. In a good way. In a _great_ way, actually. Chris is pressing little kisses on her shoulder and collarbone again--he never really stopped doing that after she moved back in--Dov is grinning up at her from where he's using her stomach as a pillow. It's nice, it's perfect, and Gail could get used to this.

* * *

There's a moment of awkwardness at breakfast, despite the serenity of their early morning togetherness, and Gail isn't going to put up with it. She'd made her boys lay down their cards last night, there's no sense in any of them pretending it hadn't been exactly what they'd all wanted. Her bullshit tolerance is simply too low.

So, she bends and presses a kiss to Dov's lips when she passes by his seat to grab the milk out of the fridge and runs her fingers through Chris's hair to scrape at his nape with her nails and says, "We're good together."

It's fucking true, and she's not about to let stupid male insecurities or ego or what-the-fuck-ever get in the way of that. Gail gets what she wants, she wants this, and she is determined to have it. Chris and Dov are too, they just haven't quite figured out how much yet. Which is why they need her, anyways; because they're stupid and Gail is too impatient to put up with it most of the time.

"Yeah. I guess we are." Chris looking shyly at Dov, like he's still half-afraid of rejection after what they did to each other last night. After all the cuddling this morning. But Dov smiles back, almost like he can't believe this is really happening to him. Then again, Dov's a dork, so the idea that he's managed to find himself involved with someone as incredibly awesome and attractive as her is probably hard to process. And Chris, too, obviously, with his sweet smile and those biceps. Mmm.

"So, uh...what now?"

"What what now?"

"What do we do now."

"Well, I'm going to eat this bowl of Fruit Loops, and then I'm going to get the shower."

"Oh. Yeah, but what are we...I mean, what _changes_?"

"I'm going to leave the door unlocked."

"Oh..." Incomprehension, at first. Dov shrugging his shoulders and not getting it. And then the widened eyes, the dopey smile, the realization. " _Oh_."

Yeah, her boys are really kind of dumb. But they're hers, and she loves them, god help her.

* * *

"So, uh, are we gonna, you know...tell people?" It's Dov who asks, after they've all come home from their shift and a few drinks at The Penny with the 15th.

"Do you want to tell people?" Chris, soft concern.

"Is it anybody else's goddamned business?" Gail, not so much.

"Not really and no, respectively. I just wanted to, like, make sure and stuff."

"Chris, you feeling the need to share?"

"Our private lives should be private if we want them to be. I'm in no rush to try and explain... _this_ to anyone."

"Good. So, secret menge a tois is a go. Sweet. Everybody get naked."

Everybody does.

* * *

"Damn, Epstein. You get yourself another girl?" Jerry grins at Dov, gives a little eyebrow wiggle.

"Something like that." Dov shrugs. It isn't, after all, exactly untrue. Gail smirks, Dov does indeed have a girlfriend once again, and a boyfriend to boot. Not that Jerry need to know that little tidbit.

"Dov, in the the name of our blender bond, take me to the coffee." Gail has had just about enough of that line of questioning.

"You are not that hungover; I know this because I am not that hungover." Dov frowns at her, playful wity banter frown, not serious hurt/angry face frown. Gail has learned the difference, wished she'd have picked up on it earlier so to have avoided that whole messy break-up thing. It would have have saved a bunch of time and hurt feelings and shit.

"You're not that hungover." Chris agrees, slinging an arm over both of their shoulders. "But coffee does sound good."

"Fetch." Gail commands, and Chris obeys with a little smile. "Dov, I said 'fetch'."

"And that would matter if I was a golden retriever like Chris. But I'm not, so I don't care."

"Fine. Whatever. I can only drink one cup at a time anyway."

"I happen to think you're really good at double fisting it."

Oh. Oh, that _asshole_. If they're going to the double-entendre place, well, Gail can play that game too. And better.

"Not all of us are shooting for a gold medal in choking." Gail quirks her eyebrow, mouth lifting into a perfectly smug smirk.

Watching Dov open and close his mouth while he struggles to think of a comeback is hilarious. The rising flush on his cheeks is pretty adorable too. And, to be fair, he _had_ made choking on Chris's dick look like a professional sport last night. Like, _skills_. She can admit to being impressed. Later though, when there won't be any awkward explaining to do.

"Gail," Chris sighs, two cups of coffee in his hands. "What did you do to Dov?"

"Nothing. Nope. Not going there." Dov breathes out in a rush, taking the lighter coffee from their boyfriend's hand before disappearing into the parade room.

"That was mine, but okay." Chris gives her a look, like this is somehow her fault.

"He started it."

* * *

The reason she hadn't really answered Dov when he'd asked about changes is because they don't need to make any, not really. The three of them have been dating for months now, they just hadn't been calling it that. So, the only change in their day-to-day are the doors they leave open instead of locked.

And all the kissing, of course. That was new. And now she can sit by either one of them and make them squirm whenever she wants. And being partnered with Dov means he can wax poetic about his newfound belief in "a love of the soul" while she rolls her eyes, affectionately, instead of being frozen in place by divided loyalties.

They still play DeathDomain together--all three of them, or just her and Dov--only now Dov knows it's okay to try and distract her with the brush of his lips and a nip of his teeth. They still share margaritas from the blender, and that's just their thing because Chris doesn't like all that fruity in his liquor, and Chris and Dov share their coffees without a second's thought. Movie marathons still end in a mess of tangled limbs, only now sometimes they're naked when the sun wakes them up.

Boy's Night Out is still a thing, and so is Peckstein's Night In, and Date Night. Only they're all really date nights now, just with different names. Because sometimes Chris comes home from The Penny to find the x-box controllers discarded on the floor next to Dov's shirt and Gail's pants, and sometimes the boys stumble home together with hickies they didn't leave with and their clothes rumpled, and sometimes Gail likes to see how far she can push her small-town boy in public before he makes them go home.

Sometimes it's the three of them, all together in the bedroom--the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, wherever they happen to be at the exact moment--or two tines of their trio in any and all combinations. And they fucking work, the way Gail was pretty sure they would, the way they had before only _better_.


End file.
